Judy Newz

Encouragement October 16, 2009

Encouragement literally means to give courage. How then may we give courage to those around us? How may we walk our pathway of life and encourage those whom God places in our pathway? I thought of a favorite quote of mine that helped me begin my encouragement ministry this morning:

“You cannot do great things, only little things done with great love. ” said Mother Teresa.

I considered this, wondering what it meant for me, today.

Little things? Okay, I could do  some little things for You Lord. Where do you want me to begin?

On my morning email was a prayer request from a young Mama . Her son, David was having his tonsils and adenoids out. Of course, the son and the family were concerned about this. I love it that she emailed and asked me to be praying for the whole situation. Of course I did pray, I also stopped and wrote her a very brief email containing a written prayer from my own heart and a verse.

“What was the verse?” you ask. It was Isaiah 41:10.

So, do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Because this verse had encouraged me in the past, I chose it to encourage this young family.

Later in my morning, still having a sink full of dishes, an idea popped into my mind.   “Send a card to David.” 

“Oh, the dishes need to be done, I haven’t started the laundry yet, can’t I do that later?”

Unable to ignore the prompting, I went to my file drawer of greeting cards.

“Well, I don’t have the PERFECT card, maybe I will just wait and grab one at the store later. ..”

That answer didn’t settle right with my soul.

“Okay, Okay.” I said as I began to dig deeper into my file drawer, exploring files other than “Get Well Soon”.

My hand fell onto a darling postcard with adorable barefoot Hawaiian children, dancing on the front of it. You could almost pinch their chubby cheeks and smell the fragrance of the leis around their necks.

“This is it!” I exclaimed, as I grabbed the card, a big Sharpie pen and my postcard stamps.

Writing a brief message on the postcard and addressing it to little David only took a moment to do. He hasn’t recieved it yet, but I know he will recieve courage when he gets it.

If you add a little to a little and do this often, soon the little will become great. -Hesiod

Listen to you heart. Let those dishes sit in your sink. Grab a postcard and a Sharpie pen and go give someone courage!